Balance in Running

On the Running Feedback forums I was recently asked about the balance spoken about in so many of the thread replies.

Balance in a nutshell is a healthy outlook and enjoyment of one’s running, where you run for what it gives you and not primarily giving to running without keeping the balance.

The balance being our life, our friends, our family and yes, our work while still achieving our running (exercise) goals.

Running can be such a great medicine for everything in life; however in my years of coaching (dating back to ’84), I often noted how obsession to one’s running and performance created a negative effect.

Years previously, I spoke to an athlete who at the age of 40+ had run 3.40 for the Two Oceans 56km Ultra Marathon. I had mentioned that he was pushing too much towards trying to get sub 3.40 at the expense of his balanced lifestyle.

My reasoning behind him not needing to do more training, was that it would come at an expense and that in turn it could lead to a negative cycle without keeping balance and perspective.

Through experience, I have come to understand that we all have ‘natural’ ability. We may not possess the same ability as the Olympic Champions but we still have talent and we should nurture it to achieve what we can from this ability.

Mental, Physical and Emotional well-being on the day of the race is the secret to success.

This is the BALANCE we should hope to maintain.

The policy during training should be to keep this balance.

Once you have set the goal, achieved the goal or maybe even fallen short, you can reassess where you stand and then plan from there.

This is another reason why I discuss ‘less is better’ (I shall write a further article regarding this)

If you do too much and break down, you often do not have a clear indication of what was too much, if you train with less then test yourself and set a mark you are able to go forward from this.